Frozen pizza typically gets an icy reception, with its cardboard packaging and taste to match, but Abbiocco Pizzeria chef Glenn Osterberg is fired up about fixing that. Last March, he and his wife, Nicole, rolled out Abbiocco At Home, delivering just-baked flavor straight from the icebox via 10-inch artisanal pies. This pizza-in-a-pinch rounds out Osterberg’s popular Abbiocco brand, which launched in 2023 with a mobile kitchen that now slings wood-fired plates outside Black Mountain’s Peri Social House five days a week. “Between the food truck and our freezer, pizza has become part of my food pyramid,” laughs the New England Culinary Institute grad, who fell in love with Italian food while heading the pasta program at famed chef Mario Batali’s Lupa Osteria Romana. Add in two decades inside top New York kitchens, and you can be certain this accomplished chef knows his ’za.
No matter how you slice it, Osterberg believes delicious pizza rests on two things: ingredients and process. As a sous-chef under Michelin star chefs Hugue Dufour and Ignacio Mattos, he learned to respect intentionally simple dishes made with quality products, an appreciation that bubbles up in his frozen New York-style pizzas, just like the fresh mozz they’re covered with.
The superior dough (the same one served at the Abbiocco food truck) combines a poolish starter with high-protein barley and whole-wheat flours to achieve a crispy, rustic crust. Allowing 48 hours of fermentation before baking also gives the yeast time to relax, resulting in a more digestible product. “That means you can eat more pizza,” says the chef, noting that even customers with gluten sensitivities find Abbiocco’s pizza easier on the stomach.
For his signature sauce, Osterberg tossed the overriding affinity for San Marzanos in favor of a tomato that doesn’t have to travel all the way from Italy. California’s San Nicola tomatoes provide a naturally sweet, just-off-the-vine flavor and the right amount of “chunk” for a toothsome sauce. The pizzas then hit the freezer “at the peak of freshness,” which is about 10 minutes after they slide out of the oven—just enough time to air-dry so that steam-driven ice crystals don’t become an unwanted topping.
Abbiocco at Home’s pizzas come in four varieties: cheese, Margherita, pepperoni (only at their farmer’s market booths), and seasonal veggie (currently a white pizza topped by ricotta cream sauce, spinach, and a medley of sliced local mushrooms). Osterberg anticipates introducing another seasonal toward the beginning of 2027. “We’re playing with ideas at the food truck and farmer’s markets,” he says. Given his Connecticut roots, perhaps bacon and onion “apizza” is in the works?
Dig In!
Abbiocco at Home retails for $12 to $16 at co-ops, gourmet groceries, and farmer’s markets across WNC. Find a full list of retailers at www.abbioccoathome.com.
